After Russia, US to train India's Gaganyaan astronauts in NASA

After Russia, the United States has also offered to train the astronauts selected for the first manned space mission of India.

The US National Aeronautics and the Space Administration (NASA) may provide advance training to the four astronauts shortlisted for the ‘Gaganyaan’ – the first mission of the Human Spaceflight Programme of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

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A meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, and his US counterpart, Jake Sullivan, in Washington DC earlier this week saw both sides agreeing to step up bilateral space cooperation with particular focus on the human spaceflight programme. The US offered to provide advanced training to the astronauts selected for the ‘Gaganyaan’ – the first crewed orbital spacecraft of the ISRO – at the Johnson Space Centre of the NASA, according to a face-sheet released by American President Joe Biden’s administration after the meeting.

Modi had announced in his Independence Day speech on August 15, 2018 that India would send astronauts to space onboard the Gaganyaan by 2022.

The mission was aimed at demonstrating the capability of the ISRO to send humans to low earth orbit and bring them back to earth safely.

The programme, however, got delayed due to shutdowns imposed to contain the Covid-19 pandemic that had swept the world since March-April 2020.

The ISRO and the Glavcosmos of Russia signed an MoU in June 2019 for training of the four astronauts, a Group Captain and three Wing Commanders of the Indian Air Force (IAF), who were shortlisted for the Gaganyaan. The training commenced at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre of Russia in February 2020 and concluded by March 2021, notwithstanding interruptions due to he Covid-19 related restrictions.

President Joe Biden’s administration of late agreed to support the ISRO’s human spaceflight programme after New Delhi had repeatedly pointed out that India had to rely more on Russia for decades only because the US and the other western nations had in the past declined to share with it advanced and critical technologies. The Modi Government had put forward the argument in response to criticism over its refusal to join the US and the rest of the West in criticising Russia for its military aggression against Ukraine.

Doval and Sullivan also agreed to identify innovative approaches for the commercial sectors of the two countries to collaborate, especially with respect to activities related to NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) project. “Within the next year, NASA, with (the) ISRO, will convene (the) US CLPS companies and Indian aerospace companies to advance this initiative,” according to the fact-sheet issued by the White House after the meeting between the two National Security Adviser.

The US State Department also said in a separate readout that the NASA and the ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, planned to launch in 2024, would now be expected to systematically map earth, using two different radar frequencies to monitor resources such as water, forests and agriculture. The mission will provide important earth science data related to ecosystems, earth’s surface, natural hazards, sea level rise and the cryosphere, it added.